I wasn’t going to do this anymore. Fuck the game. I’d tell Coach I suddenly got sick, and had to go home. It might have been the last game of the season, anyway. I could take a year and recover from this humiliation, after everything blew over, I thought.
I didn’t even get a chance to get out the door, before I felt Gordy’s fist wrap around my arm and he yanked me back, shoving me up against the cold, tile wall. With his other hand around my throat, he thrust his leg in between mine, pinning me in place.
“Unless you want this video to get out, so everyone knows all about your little secret, you’ll stop trying to one up me for that fuckin’ scholarship, Waters,”he spat in my face.“I told you I’d do whatever it fuckin’ took to get it, and I meant it…”
He continued to rip on me a while longer—all while still holding me there—about how I should quit the team or else that video would be made public. He promised me that sharing it with his girlfriend, Trista-Lynn, would only ensure that the whole school would know about it, since she was so popular. He told me how uncomfortable I had always made all the guys feel in the locker room, though I never even so much as breathed near anyone in there, so my participation on the team was no longer wanted.
He finally released me, and just like that, I walked out of the locker room for the last time as a member of the Ternbay High Tigers baseball team. I walked away from being the brunt of all the ‘yeah, I bet he is a catcher onand offthe field’ jokes. I walked away from my former friends turned tormentors, all of them too pussy to do anythingbutgo along with Gordy.
I stormed out feeling like such shit for not fighting back, for not sticking up for myself.
I left, and didn’t say a damn thing about the harassment I’d been enduring, and the blackmail I was now up against.
The worst part of it all is that I wasn’t even able to explain to my parents why I’d given up on playing baseball—something I had always loved. I was too terrified to just admit that I might be gay. I thought I knew my dad’s views on ‘boys who liked smoochin’ other boys.’ So, I also thought I knew that I’d be an embarrassment to him and the rest of my family—and we Waters had a reputation to live up to.
That’s just the world I grew up in.
I needed to do something to get that stigma off of me. Even without the video leaking, I’m sure word would get around that I almost kissed another guy in the locker room, and was sporting an obvious erection in a group of half-naked guys. I felt cornered again.
So, the very next week, when a bunch of my parents' friends came over for a lobster feed, I noticed Miranda making eyes at me from across the yard, just like usual. She’d frequently come to those cookouts we hosted, since her dad, Walter, and my dad were buddies. Miranda and I were always friendly with each other—both in and out of school, being classmates who often ran in the same circles together—but I never really had too much interest in returning her flirtatious advances whenever they came up…for obvious reasons.
I liked her as a friend, that’s all. She was never mean to me, despite the rumors circulating about me. She’d often try to console me whenever she found me curled up in the stairwell at school, after a particularly rough day.
She felt like safety to me. One person, when I had so few, that I could turn to if I needed to vent. That’s why I don’t think I ever outright told her I didn’t want to date her, whenever she flirted with me. I didn’t want to estrange her too, by telling her I wasn’t interested.
So, she’d always just keep trying to get me to ask her out, oblivious to the fact that I never voiced a reciprocal attraction.
Our parents never seemed to notice that I wasn’t particularly eager to become more than just friends with her either, because they always kept saying what a ‘perfect’ couple we would make. Gannett, however, seemed perceptive enough to see that I wasn’t returning her flirtations, so he would always give me shit for ‘being blind’ and not properly drooling over what had been dangled in front of me for years, since she’d started growing into womanhood.
“She’s a hottie! What are you blind?”he would always joke.“Sometimes, I swear it’s as if you only like dudes…”
If only he knew. I did think I liked just dudes. Liking dudes is what was making me the laughing stock of my entire class and baseball team, alienating me from everyone, it seemed.
If I had a girlfriend, however, it would be hard to keep making the argument that I was gay, wouldn’t it? If there was any girl I felt I could make myself fall for, it’d be her. Hell, maybe I could discover that I was bisexual, not gay. How hard could it be to just…appearstraight?
I approached her, offering her a soda, and yeah, maybe there was a little alcohol I snuck out of Dad’s liquor cabinet, too. She accepted, and we took a walk together, away from the boisterousness of the party. We sat together, held hands, and watched the boats bob on the water at the marina and chatted about our plans for the summer and what was to come our senior year.
She, of course, gushed that I finally seemed to be returning her flirtations.
The more we talked, the easier I thought it would be to just—I don't know—become attracted to her. Shewasundeniably pretty, after all. That wouldn’t be so hard. We would look good together on paper—Wagner and Walter’s prince and princess. When we kissed it was my first time. Her lips were as soft as rose petals. Dainty and demure, it was never how I envisioned my first kiss. Her kisses would take some getting used to, but then again, it’s not like I really had another frame of reference otherwise.
Anyway, by the end of the cookout, I had a date to prom, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Iawaken to the sun blazing down on us as we lay on the blanket from last night. I somehow feel much lighter, despite his body draped over mine. After I confessed everything to him, we talked for a while longer about the guilt I felt about not being enough for Miranda, and he eventually broke down too, telling me how he felt similarly about not feeling like he was a good brother to Ryann.
We talked and talked, until neither of us could keep our eyes open any longer. We certainly didn’t have the energy to make it back to camp, so we must have dozed off under the stars, next to our crackling fire. You wouldn’t think waking up on the ground would be comfortable, but I have zero complaints. I’m sandwiched between a bed of sand and Brooks’ body—both of which mold perfectly to me.
I peer down at him as he snores lightly, his cheek pressed against my chest. Despite the lingering guilt I feel about finding someone who I finally feel comfortable enough around to pour my soul out to, I can’t help but think that maybe it’s a sign. Maybe our meetingwas something predestined, like a course plotted out by some celestial being—a cosmic compass of sorts.
If you believe in that sort of thing, anyway.
We were like two ships lost in the dark, until we both found our Polaris in each other. Together, we navigated via our North Star. Our guiding light, formed when our grief and feelings of worthlessness collided into a supernova.
God, I really am a big, giant sap. But right now, him sleeping comfortably against me, I can’t bring myself to honestly give a shit about how I’m perceived for once. It feels nice. Comfortable.
Like waking up with him by my side is so perfect that it can’t be wrong or disgusting. We’re just two people, two men, who are wrapped up in each other’s orbit, unable to untangle from one another. I could see myself wanting this forever, waking up next to him—no matter if it's on the gritty sand of a beach or a big, plush bed.
